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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Hi everybody I installed slackware again for the second time the first install went smooth the second one did not go so well. I am not sure if the partitions were set up wrong or.. I have no idea what's going on but here is the problem.

I am not receving any error messages when the pc boots but when I type shutdown -h now the pc haults then error messages flood the screen saying X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) I cannot remember all of the error messages but 90 percent of the error messages I am reciving during shut down are all pretty much the same X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) just about all of them relate to bad windows parameters. Also the screen glitiches Big time when the computer boots to desktop, no error messages just a Big glitch. I fear that this problem might ruin my monitor.

I purchased slackwares 4 CD set along with the book and inside the book the aurthor mentioned LQ. was the official slackware website so I figured that this place would be the best place to come to ask for help. If anyone would like to know my order # I will post or Pm the last half of the order number just incase anyone would like to varify that I bought the 4 cd set including the book from slackwares webiste.

Any help on how to fix this this error message will be much appreciated.

Try looking in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. You may find some additional information on why you are receiving so many error messages. Also, are you typing 'shutdown -h' inside a terminal window while X is running or are you typing the command into the command line with no X running?

Finally, you don't need to prove that you bought the CD's and book from the Slackware site to get help here. It's free, regardless.

Tino27 thanks for the reply I opened the folder that you mentioned and did not find any useful information.

I click on the K button located at the bottom of the desktop then choose the option that says log off- end session- after that I am taken back to the black screen that's when I type su password shutdown -h now a message comes up saying sending single 'something to that effect computer is halting- power down. Then I use the button on the cpu to turn off the computer.

Everything else is working fine just can't get rid of those x bad window error messages.

I get what I assume is probably the same messages whenever I exit from KDE and go to the command line interface. I don't know what causes the error messages either. I have my computer set for run level 3 instead of run level 5 so whenever I exit KDE I end up at the command prompt. I see those and other messages at that time.

Everything seems to work perfectly so I don't worry to much about the brief list of complaints that I briefly see as I am shutting down the computer. I have used various versions of Linux for about 5 years now on my home computers and more often than not I have seen a list of minor errors of some kind when exiting Gnome or KDE. Despite a few error messages when exiting, my home computers have always had rock solid stability over the long run. I have always wished I was enough of a Linux guru to track down the causes of those minor error messages and eliminate them.

Just out of curiousity, I decided just now, to look at that particular CLI window or terminal or whatever you call it without shutting down KDE first. To do that I pressed CTRL-ALT-F1 to see what was there. Afterwards I pressed CTRL-ALT-F7 to get back to KDE. I saw that there were already some messages several of which sound like very minor error messages. The two bad window messages are not yet there. Presumably, I need to exit from X-Windows first.

I have checked the video settings such as maximum horizontal and vertical refresh rates and the amount of video ram in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and they are correct for both my monitor and video card so I am not worried about damaging my monitor (if that is really has anything to do with the error messages). I should also mention that I use a 2.6.13.1 kernel that I compiled myself. Here is the error mesages that I get:

There has to be something in KDE's and GNOME's exit code that is probably causing this, and just has not been addressed, since I doubt Pat could really do anything about this, the only thing to do is to get a copy of the messages when exiting and report it to the KDE team itself, same with GNOME. I always get the bad window codes when exiting, but I just ignore them

I have an big older style CRT monitor myself so I do not have any experience with an LCD monitor. My monitor does not flash like that when I boot up or shut down. If you want to check the settings you could use a text editor such as Kate or vi to look at the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. You can look in the "monitor" section of the file to see what HorizSync and VertRefresh rate ranges are being used. You can compare that to the specifications on the link you provided for the Dell UltraSharp 1702FP 17" LCD monitor. You definately would not want to use a number that is higher than what is listed. If you happen to also know the maximum settings for your video card you could also compare them with what is there although I would be more concerned about checking the monitor specs than the video card specs.

If you need to make a simple change you could manually edit the file with the text editor if you are running it as root. Be sure to make a backup copy of the file under a different name first. An alternative to manually editing the file is to use xorgconfig to configure your video settings. I have not used xorgconfig or anything similar lately but here is where you can find the Slackware specific instructions for using it:

You will also notice that the graphics device section of the xorg.conf file lists what video driver is being used. There would be three possible drivers that could be used there. They are vesa, nv, and nvidia. To use the official nvidia driver you would need to download it directly from Nvidia. The vesa driver is a generic safe choice, the nv driver is an open source nvidia driver and the nvidia driver is the official one provided by nvidea. You could also check to see if the amount of video ram there matches what your video card actually has if you happen to know that. Any line a "#" in front of it is commented out and not being used.